Rapport
by ss10009
Summary: Kelly Prescott is not dead. Right? Wrong. It was a misconception to think that happily ever after could start in high school, after all-not when you're grounded from seeing your boyfriend. And not when you can't figure out exactly what your relationship with your used-to-be pursuer is. Post Book 6.
1. About the Haughty and a Hottie

**Disclaimer:** The Mediator is a book by Meg Cabot. I am ss10009, not Meg Cabot. I don't own the Mediator, nor do I attempt to make money off of this fanfiction.

 **Note:** Follows the canon of Books 1 - 6 and does not reflect anything that happened in _Proposal_ or will happen in _Remembrance_.

 **Chapter One – About the Haughty and a Hottie**

If someone had asked me two days ago what the word "haughty" meant, I would've told them Maria de Silva. (Unless I thought they'd said "hottie," in which case I would've responded by naming her cousin.) Of course, that answer wouldn't make any sense to them unless they were Monterey county history buffs, but it still held true. That girl was haughty incarnate.

But that's what I would have responded with if you had asked me two days ago.

Now I knew better.

With her permanently upturned nose, pouty lips, and fussy demeanor, Sandrine Robinston (not _Robinson_ , mind you) was truly what the word "haughty" meant. For good measure, she also meant "insolence." She seemed to have it set in her mind that I was an evil, disgusting troll that existed to be bossed around. One, I wasn't evil. I've seen evil before, and I'm quite a bit different from it. (Paul Slater and I are not the same person.) Two, I wasn't disgusting either. I mean, I'm not Jessica Biel or anything, but I'm not exactly Rosie O'Donnell either. And as far as me not being a troll, I lived in the Carmel Hills, not under a bridge. Sure, it was a converted boarding house from the 19th century, but under a bridge it was not.

I didn't exist to be bossed around either, but Sandrine was still doing it. Bossing me around, that is. I was currently in Algebra II and sitting near Sandrine. Except Sandrine didn't belong there; she didn't even belong in this plane of _being_. Sandrine belonged to the exclusive club of people who'd died and, for some reason, hadn't been able to move on to wherever it is that people go after they die.

So instead of being in Heaven or Hell or _anywhere but my math class_ , Sandrine was currently perched on top of my desk, screaming at the top of her lungs. Because the universe regularly conspires against me, I was the only mediator in the classroom. I've got every class but two with Paul this semester, and Sandrine decided to show up here and now, while Paul was in Calculus with Cee Cee and everyone else who had a knack for math. That meant I was the only one in class struck by a growing desire to clasp my hands over my ears in pain.

Instead of covering my ears, I shot my hand straight up into the air. Sister Rachel took a break from her explanation on solving equations with multiple variables to look at me.

"Can I go to the restroom?" I asked. My voice was louder than normal, and I could still barely hear myself over the sound of Sandrine's vocal accompaniment.

Sister Rachel eyed the clock, and Sandrine took the opportunity to breathe. Ghosts didn't have to breathe, but apparently Sandrine was just as bad at being a ghost as she was at being nice or complacent. I took the opportunity to give her a covert punch in the ribs. She fell to the floor, and Sister Rachel looked at me oddly. Thanks to Sandrine, it looked like I'd just been punching thin air. If we had a school psychiatrist, I'd probably be in their office right now.

"There are only two minutes left of class," Sister Rachel said. "Take your things with you."

I pushed everything into my bag, thanked her, and left. Sandrine materialized in front of me a few moments later, scowling and looking pissed off. It was a classic 'I-just-got-punched-in-the-ribs' expression for ghosts. Nothing broken or bruised ever stays that way for ghosts, unfortunately.

"What was so important back there?" I asked.

Sandrine looked like she was torn between telling me what was wrong and just plain telling me off. In the end, she decided on the former. "I think I know why I'm still here," she said.

It was those eight words that started it all.

I don't enjoy skipping class to deal with mediator business. Skipping class to handle ghosts was a large part of what landed me a horrible reputation-and an even worse report card-back in Brooklyn. But when ditching class also meant ditching Sandrine I was much more amicable towards the idea. Besides, if Sandrine stuck around for my next class, she'd wind up meeting Paul. And Paul wasn't as "soft" as I was. I was pretty sure that if she showed up in history next period he'd just send her off to Shadowland.

As pretentious and annoying as Sandrine was, she didn't deserve to be exorcised.

Ultimately, I was acting in everyone's best interest. Besides, it wasn't like this planning wasn't costing me. After a long walk from the Mission, I'd had to board a trolley four of tourists because Dopey still had the car keys, and I couldn't exactly snag them from him in the middle of class.

"Tell me about this Henry guy," I said as we got off of the trolley. I spoke softly so that it looked like I was just mumbling something to myself and not holding a full fledged conversation with the invisible-to-everyone-but-me ghost beside me.

"Henry was my fiancé," Sandrine said. "We were to be married at the end of the year."

"The end of the year you died, right?" I asked. Sandrine, I knew, had died at the ripe old age of 27 in the year 1926 from a case of diphtheria.

Sandrine nodded.

"And now you want to know what happened to him?"

There was another nod.

The whole key to dealing with ghosts is knowing what they want. If they know why they're here, then they're usually a lot easier to deal with. When they don't know, or when their requests are nigh impossible to grant, then they're edgy. Of course, most ghosts are usually a little edgy. Otherwise this job would be way too easy, and whoever it is that's in charge of this whole mediator thing _does not_ want this job to be easy.

"You don't think Henry died of natural causes then?"

Sandrine scowled at me. "I know he did not die of natural causes, you little twit. If that had been my thought, then why would I not know what happened to him? Would it kill you to take a few seconds of thinking time before you speak and prove you're dimwitted?!"

"Be a bitch about it, then. _God_ ," I said. I'd forgotten to say this line quietly, however, and several tourists were giving me odd, affronted looks. I quickly hurried on and hoped they didn't notice that my hand was cinched tightly around thin air as I dragged Sandrine with me. She protested loudly to this treatment, but I was the only one that could hear her outrage towards "being treated like an inexpensive harlot."

I dragged her a few more yards to our destination, and I pushed open the doors of the Carmel Historical Society.

The Historical Society seemed like a logical place to find out more about this Henry guy. From what Sandrine had told me, Henry had been important. I was pretty sure that most of the things Sandrine told me were just pretentious garbage, especially when it came to the people in her favor (the people in her favor adding up to two people, herself and Henry), but I figured it was worth a shot anyway.

I was not at the Historical Society to see _him_ , if that's what you're wondering. I mean, for all I know, he might not even be working today. He could be on break right now, or something.

The possibility of seeing Jesse was simply a perk.

So sue me if I wanted a spot of sunshine in my day. I'd been dealing with Sandrine for a couple of days now in addition to studying for semester exams. I hadn't so much as spoken to Jesse in nearly a week, and I hadn't seen him in person in over a two weeks. Getting closer to the winter holidays meant getting busier with studying, and my mom was adamant that I focus on school more now that I was a junior.

I'd never done too well on tests back in Brooklyn, mainly because I was busy ditching class to help out wandering spirits and therefore hadn't familiarized myself very well with the material, but my mom seemed determined to change that this year. I'd done OK on my final exams in sophomore year, so I wasn't sure why she was stressing so much, but I guessed it might have had something to do with the SATs. Junior year was the ideal test-taking time, apparently, and she'd started mentioning the importance of studying for it a few weeks ago.

Between the academic pressure and mediation, I hadn't been able to squeeze in any Jesse time, which was strange. Ever since I'd known Jesse, we'd spent a fair amount of time together. After all, we'd been forced to room together for several months. I'm not saying I'm one of those whiny girls who can't function away from her boyfriend or anything, but I was very much so accustomed to spending time with Jesse. He was more than a boyfriend to me. He'd become my best friend and—.

"There he is!" Sandrine said, pointing towards a portrait on the wall.

The portrait, probably painted with oil, contained multiple people. They were wearing fancy clothes and those weird facial expressions that people in old time-y photos usually wear. You know, that really stoic 'I-wish-I-were-somewhere-else' look.

I looked at the portrait for a few moments. I assumed I was looking for a guy in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. That didn't help though. All of the guys in the portrait, except for one crusty looking old guy, appeared to be around the same age.

"Which one is he?" I asked.

She turned her nose at me even more than usual. "Can you not tell? My Henry is the handsome one, of course."

I continued looking at the picture. I wouldn't call a single one of these guys handsome. I guess standards of beauty have really changed since then. I wondered, idly, if Jesse was considered as attractive in his day as he was now.

"The leftmost in the front row."

I found Henry. His only distinctive facial feature was his lips. They were thin and looked like they were excellent for sneering. I've only known Sandrine for a couple of days now, but it is definitely her to go for the sneering type. Then I noticed something else about Henry. He was the proud owner of a strong, muscular frame. Maybe that was why she was so enraptured by him. That and the fact that his strong, muscular frame was wrapped in an expensive looking coat.

Sandrine busied herself with swooning while I started to read the sign beneath the portrait.

 _The Ashforth_ _F_ _amily_

 _A family of wealthy investors who inhabited Carmel..._

I began to speed read, catching tiny details as I went. They'd gotten rich off of the stock market and had been busy living their life of riches up to the maximum when the Great Depression hit.

 _In March of 1930, the Ashforth family lost virtually all of their wealth, over $460,000 worth of funds._ _This resulted in the near immediate suicides of patriarch Michael Ashforth and his two eldest sons, Archibald and Henry._

"I know why Henry died," I said.

Sandrine turned and gave me an imploring look. "Why?" she asked quickly.

"Four years after you died, the Great Depression hit."

I could tell by the momentary lapse of confusion on her face that she didn't know what the Great Depression was. She masked it and responded with, "Why should that matter?"

"The Ashforth's were a family of investors, and they lost all of their money on the stock market. Henry killed himself, Sandrine."

I saw Sandrine's face blanch, which said a lot. She hadn't exactly hit the beach when she was alive, and her skin was already as pale as ivory.

"Even if I had lived..." she murmured. Her tone was destitute, and her voice and body were already beginning to fade. Sandrine had moved on.

I felt a little bad for her. Even if she had been a haughty bitch, she'd still been in love.

I turned away from the portrait and cast a quick glance towards the wall, looking for a clock. Nearly an hour and a half had passed since I'd left school. In fact, I only had forty-five minutes left of my final class. My face took in a few bits of sunshine as I turned towards the door to return to the Mission.

"This concludes our tour of Carmel when it was known as Rancho Las Manzanitas," I heard a tour guide say.

And I knew Jesse's voice well enough to not have to turn around to confirm that he was nearby. Of course he was nearby. He worked here.

I also didn't have to turn around to know when Jesse spotted me either. He broke off mid-sentence while answering a question from one curious tourist. The Q&A section was fairly brief however, brief enough for Jesse to descend upon me before I could properly exit the building.

"Susannah," Jesse said as he peered curiously at me. "It's half past two on a Thursday. Shouldn't you be in school?"

"I _was_ in school, Jesse. I just had some mediator business to take care of."

"Business so important that it couldn't wait for another hour? Doesn't missing classes have some sort of repercussion or reflection on your transcripts?" Jesse looked a little peeved at me as he continued to chastise me for my "bad behavior."

I was trying to pay attention to him, I really was. But one, after all the lectures I'd received about ditching class back in Brooklyn, there wasn't much new anyone could say to me on the subject. And two, Jesse looks even hotter than usual when peeved. He doesn't make things shake anymore because he's alive now, but the scar in his eyebrow still seems more prominent, and it makes him even more attractive.

"Susannah," Jesse said, stressing my name.

"Yeah," I replied, hoping that my face wasn't spelling out 'I-Was-Not-Listening-to-You.'

"I asked how much time you had left in school."

"Less than an hour."

"How beneficial would your return be?"

I didn't understand the question for a few moments. But I grinned at him once hd did.

The story of how Suze Simon skipped school to mediate a ghost had just turned into the story of how Suze Simon skipped school and hung out with her no-longer-ghostly boyfriend. And if you asked me, that made for a much better story.

 **Next Chapter:** When it All Falls Apart

 **End Notes:**

This is embarrassing, but I promised myself I wouldn't post anymore fanfiction unless it was complete. I have been sitting on this fic in development hell since 2010. I completed it in 2012 but then needed time to make major revisions for plot holes. I _still_ haven't finished editing all of the plot holes and incongruities, but I feel ready to post the beginning now. There are nineteen chapters in total and an epilogue (that I...haven't finished), and I should be able to post the remaining chapters (apart from the epilogue) regularly. Thanks for sticking with me through this first chapter and please leave a review if you didn't think this chapter was completely horrible (or even if you did).


	2. When It All Falls Apart

**Disclaimer:** The Mediator is a book by Meg Cabot. I am ss10009, not Meg Cabot. I don't own the Mediator, nor do I attempt to make money off of this fanfiction.  
Title shamelessly ripped from The Veronica's song.  
Spoilers for Moby Dick?

 **Notes:** Casual reminder that this story is set in 2005-ish, so please be patient with the references to 2005-ish things.

 **Chapter** **Two** **– When It All Falls Apart**

As of today, the first Friday in December, I was finding out a lot of things. The most important of these things was that the Junípero Serra Mission Academy did not tolerate lying to its staff members or the failure to attend class without proper excuse. I wanted to point out that I did have proper excuse, Sandrine Robinston, but that was hardly the type of thing I could tell to Sister Ernestine. But when I wound up in Father Dom's office about ten minutes later, it was the sort of thing that I didn't mind telling him.

"Susannah, attending class is in no way optional," Father Dom said in a tone best described as serious and non-negotiable.

Of course Father Dom didn't understand. Skipping class to deal with ghosts was unacceptable in his eyes. I might as well have been off fraternizing with the Antichrist. But as a fellow mediator who'd encountered sticky situations in the past, he really should have been more understanding and sympathetic towards my plight.

"We've been over this before, Susannah," Father Dom continued. "Yet I feel as though you are not taking away any meaning from what I am saying. Why did you not tell me about this ghost?"

OK, we really had been down this road before. Father Dom liked to be informed about all spectral activity, no matter how minor it was. But I wasn't used to notworking alone just yet. I'd left New York almost a year ago, but some habits die hard. It was like having to tell someone every time you took a breath. One of these days he was going to have to understand that I could take care of anything and everything that came my way.

OK, OK, _almost_ anything and everything. Mediation had never managed to get as out of hand in Brooklyn as it had gotten here. What was up with the west coast, anyway?

"Sandrine wasn't the type of ghost who needed the attention of more than one mediator," I replied truthfully. Father Dom just didn't understand the sizable favor that I'd bestowed upon him. He would not have wanted to put up with her.

Father Dominic sighed, and, for a moment, I saw the age in his face. If his hair wasn't already snowy white, I would've said I was giving him grays. But the wary look in his eyes was gone in a flash, and he quickly returned to being an unusually attractive senior citizen. "This ghost, this Sandrine, might not have been dangerous, Susannah. I'll take your word on that. But your education is still quite important."

I almost mentioned how him taking me out of class every other day to lecture me at length about the paranormal was not helping my education in any way. This was probably the reason why I was doing so poorly in my first period class, religion. Though, it probably also had something to do with the fact that I spend most of the class period passing notes with Cee Cee and Adam, so I couldn't let Father Dom take all of the blame.

"You should have told me about her, Susannah. Or, at the very least, you should have waited to mediate her until after the school day had drawn to a close. Leaving school in the middle of the day—."

"It wasn't the _middle_ of the day," I protested weakly.

"Regardless. It doesn't matter if there were only twenty minutes left of school, your actions were unacceptable. And I'm sorry to tell you this, Susannah, but there will be repercussions." Father Dom took a pause here. "You now have to serve a three day out-of-school suspension. Your parents are also going to be notified."

I think I kind of gaped at him. I'd done out-of-school suspensions before, back in middle school, but didn't this kind of stuff go on my permanent record now? Besides, how could Father Dominic, of all people, do this to me. My last principal wasn't a mediator. My last principal had never helped me perform an exorcism (on myself). And I'd never had to wonder what I should buy a principal for Christmas, like I was starting to wonder now for Father Dom.

"I know you were only trying to help yesterday," Father Dom said, "but the bottom line is, you chose not to attend class."

"And that's all that matters, huh?" I asked sarcastically. "This is what I get for being a good Samaritan."

Father Dom sighed. "There were other options for you to choose yesterday, Susannah. You chose an unwise course and—."

"You have no idea how much this girl was pissing me off," I complained.

He didn't comment on the semantics of my statement. Instead, he said, "Language, Susannah," in a sharp voice.

I sighed and thought about what I might be punished with for skipping school. I'd probably be grounded. I could kiss the beach goodbye. And possibly the phone in my room. I hoped that whatever sentence I received would be short and over by the time I returned to school.

"So… this whole suspension thing still stands?" I asked as I began to wrap our visit up.

"Yes, Susannah, I'm afraid it does," Father Dom replied.

I hoisted my backpack up from the floor and prepared to ask Father Dom for my hall pass and bolt. Except when I asked for my pass back to class, Father Dom refused to give me one. It wasn't a mean refusal, he just said that I wouldn't need one.

"Susannah, I'm afraid that your suspension begins today. I've already notified your stepfather, and he should be here fairly soon. You may wait outside in the receptionist area until he arrives," Father Dom said.

It didn't take Andy more than two minutes to arrive and herd me into the car. The car ride home from the Mission was a different story. It couldn't have been more than five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I could practically feel the disappointment radiating from Andy the whole time. He cared about me like I was his own kid.

For the first time today, I felt a little guilty.

"Why did you skip school, Suze?"

Those were the first words from Andy's mouth after we left the principal's office. I didn't have a proper answer for him at the moment. I didn't have a ready explanation that didn't involve a ghost named Sandrine screaming at me during the middle of my math class. And something told me Andy wasn't going to buy that.

Instead, I shrugged my shoulders in a dejected, juvenile delinquent sort of way. Meanwhile, my mind whirred for an acceptable answer that I could use the next time I was asked.

Unsurprisingly, Andy didn't believe my shrug was sufficient. "You weren't skipping school to…" he paused here, trying to find the right word, "to be with a boy, were you?"

Something in Andy's tone told me that when he said "be with," he didn't mean it in the same way as "be with a friend" or even "be with members of a gang" (that would be more of a Sleepy-like implication). His meaning of "be with" could be replaced with something a little different Something that started with an 'S' and rhymed with T-Rex.

You know, sex.

"Nothing like that," I said quickly as I tried not to think about how I'd traipsed along the beach with Jesse yesterday.

Andy looked a relieved to hear that. He wasn't done grilling me though. "So, then why did you skip class?"

I shrugged again, but before he could ask me more questions I said, "I don't know. I guess I was just bored with math."

"You have SAT testing this year, Suze. You really can't bail on anything due to boredom. It's irresponsible. That isn't the kind of thing you want to carry over into your adult life. Look, not everything can be interesting. You have to learn to be more patient and diligent."

Andy dove into a full blown lecture on values that continued even as we sat in the garage. It was always hard to sit through lectures that you didn't technically deserve. I should know; I've done it an ungodly amount of times. But lectures are nowhere near as bad as what comes after them: punishment.

Andy had said that, until my mother came home and they had a chance to discuss, I was going to have to study. Studying wasn't exactly punishment to me. It was ten o'clock on a Friday morning, so I'd normally be at school learning anyway. I was all set to go upstairs and crack open a book while listening to Gwen Stefani.

My outlook changed when Andy said that I couldn't watch TV, listen to music, or use my phone. He pretty much ordered me into an Amish lifestyle until my mom got back. It was unfortunate, considering that _Moby Dick_ , our current book for English, would not be nearly as much fun sans "Cool."

About a half hour after I got to my room, I began to feel kind of trapped up there. Andy had returned to work, so there wouldn't be anyone around to know if I put on a CD or watched America's Next Top Model instead of the pages of _Moby Dick_. But I didn't like the idea of deceiving Andy about things that didn't have to do with ghosts. My records might say juvenile delinquent, but I think my heart says good Samaritan.

When I glanced towards my windowsill, I couldn't help but be reminded of Jesse. If I'd been grounded a few months ago, he might have appeared there and alleviated my boredom. Considering how easy the climb up to my windowsill was, he could probably still do that. But Jesse wasn't the type of guy who'd sneak into a girl's room. That, in Jesse's words, would impugn upon her and her family's honor. Though it would be fun if he were. The type of guy who'd sneak into a girl's room, I mean.

I spent my time daydreaming about Jesse sneaking into my room and wondering when Moby Dick was actually going to be introduced. After flipping through the 135 chapters of the book, I discovered that the answer was chapter 133.

My mom chose that moment, when I was busy flipping through the pages at rapid speed, to enter my room.

"I think that's called skimming, Suze, not reading," she said.

Her tone was controlled in proper newswoman fashion which meant that I was definitely in trouble. Mom walked over to my bed and took a seat on its edge. I was sitting so that my back was to the headboard, and she was sitting so that she was about a foot away from where my knees were.

"I heard you were skipping class today," she said, taking the matter on head first. "Because you were bored, I'm told."

Like an idiot, I hadn't thought to improve upon this story at all. "Yeah," I replied solidly.

"Where'd you go?"

"To," I paused, trying to think of where it was that I went. More towards where it was that I didn't go. Although I'd spent quite a bit of time in efforts to get to the Historical Society, I'd only spent about fifteen minutes there. Later, Jesse and I had wandered around Carmel, laughing and eating dripping ice cream; we'd gone to the beach for a while and then spent some time at his apartment (and we were _not_ getting horizontal—unfortunately). It wouldn't make much sense for me to be at the Historical Society though. "To visit a friend."

"A friend of yours that wasn't in school with you?" Mom asked skeptically. "And how old might this friend have b—?"

She cut herself off mid sentence and stared at me.

"Susannah," she said, and I knew she meant business once she'd dropped my full name. "Were you with Jesse?"

I froze. She'd hit the nail on the head, and by the look that was slowly taking over her face I could tell that she knew it.

"Um…" I said, grasping for some kind of counter towards this truth that I could use. Only twenty minutes or so of the time I'd spent with Jesse yesterday had been during school hours. The rest of the time I'd spent with Jesse had technically been after school. This explanation wasn't going to make much sense to my mother though, seeing as I'd missed about two hours of school.

"We just… happened to run into each other," I said lamely. And truthfully, might I add.

The look on her face didn't change. She wasn't buying it.

My mom let out a deep breath as though she was readying herself for something. "I suppose, Suze, that now is a good a time as ever to talk to you about this."

"Talk to me about what?" I asked.

I was done with my attempts to convince her that I hadn't skipped school to hang out with Jesse. Not that I'd done much attempting. And not that I'd skipped school to hang out with Jesse in the first place.

My mother scooted closer to me and then asked a question I wasn't really expecting.

"Are you and Jesse sexually active?"

If I had been drinking water, I think I would've spit it out, like people always do on TV when they hear something that they weren't expecting.

"No," I said emphatically. It was like déjà vu from when Paul had asked me if I was sleeping with Jesse. And the worst part of me not being sexually active with Jesse was that I kind of wanted to be. Sexually active, I mean. I'm not sure if I'm really ready to go all the way, but there's definitely some halfway stuff that can be done.

"Suze… Are you telling me the truth?" my mom asked. And then she looked at me with concern in her eyes. "If you are engaging in…sexual intercourse with Jesse, then I just want you to know about the issues. About teen pregnancy. About sexually transmitted diseases."

"Jesse and I are not having sex," I said quickly. "Seriously, Mom."

Her newscaster voice was back and as strong as ever, factual and bulldozing through things that would have made other people uncomfortable to say. Usually, this voice got used for reporting fatalities or human suffering, but in this case, she said, "Even if it's oral sex then—."

"Mom! Jesse and I aren't doing anything that couldn't go into a Disney movie," I said. This wasn't entirely true, considering how close Jesse's hands had gotten lately to being almost on the other side of my shirt, but it was still closer to the truth than I would've liked it to be.

My mom looked dubious at this statement, but she moved past the sex thing.

"Skipping school is unacceptable," she said. And then she sighed. "Suze, I really thought we left these behaviors back in New York."

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said, and I was being sincere. I really was sorry that my mother couldn't just have a normal daughter. A daughter that didn't skip school to kick ghost butt. A daughter that didn't talk to what looked like thin air to everyone else. A daughter who could hold off on dating a guy who was older than her by more than a century until she left high school. That would have make my mother's life here absolutely perfect.

"Both times you've skipped school here, it's been over guys. School right now is much too critical for you to miss attending it. Your semester exams are coming up in less than two weeks, and you're going to have to take the SAT's next month. So I don't want to do this, Suzie, but I will."

A storm was coming. I could feel it. She didn't call me "Suzie" when she was mad at me unless she'd thought of a particularly fitting punishment.

And I was right. Because that was when she said, "Until you've taken your SAT's, you are not allowed to see Jesse."

 **Next Chapter:** You Are (Not) Alone

 **End Notes:**

Don't forget to review, please. I'm offering cupcakes.


	3. You Are (Not) Alone

**Disclaimer:** The Mediator is a book by Meg Cabot. I am ss10009, not Meg Cabot. I don't own the Mediator, nor do I attempt to make money off of this fanfiction.

 **Chapter 3 – You Are (Not) Alone**

My mother's words were trapped within my mind and slamming into each side of my brain like one of those screensavers that comes on when you've paused a DVD for too long.

God, I get one day with Jesse after not seeing him for two weeks, and now I'm not going to see him for a month? Testing for the SAT took place in January, and it was early December now.

I immediately voiced this complaint.

"The SAT's don't happen until January twenty-something. December just started yesterday."

Mom looked thoughtful.

"I suppose you're right about that," she said.

"So you see my point?" I asked.

I hoped she would be sympathetic to my plight. I didn't like the idea of being separated from Jesse for that long. Most girls wouldn't want to be forcibly separated from thier boyfriends. But unlike most girls, their boyfriends weren't destined to be their eternal loves.

But I couldn't tell my mother this. For one thing, my mother was much too rational to give a psychic any sort of credibility. I was the same way until Madame Zara had hit the nail on the head about my ability to talk to ghosts. And I definitely did not plan on letting my mom know Madame Zara was legit by confessing to my adventures in the field of mediation.

Second of all, perhaps even more importantly, things like "one true love" and "eternity" are cheesier than Andy's quesadillas, and I had no intention of saying anything of the sort out loud.

Mom sighed, and her next words were slow. "I guess that is a bit harsh… But I am very worried about your school work. You've never really been an honor student, but testing this year is going to be very important. The SAT determines so much about your future, and… Susie, I just want you to do well."

She looked a little tearful now, and through all of the injustice of me being punished for doing my job as a mediator, I started to feel guilty.

"Since the SAT is still a little far off, you can see him before the test," she said.

I released an inaudible sigh of relief. For a second there, I was worried I'd have to sneak out of the house to do something other than mediator business. It would have been a first for me as, if you excuse all of my cavorting with the undead, I mostly had model behavior.

But my mom wasn't through talking yet.

To cap off our conversation she said, "However, I want you to at least be focused for semester exams. So, until then, I don't expect you and Jesse to be seeing each other."

And just like that, I was back in my own personal hell.

Aside from not being allowed to make physical contact with Jesse for the next two weeks, I was grounded until Thursday, when I was set to return to school, and ordered to stay away from any outlets that could've provided me with entertainment during my suspension. No phone calls. No television. No CD's.

If there's one thing I've learned in my sixteen years, it's that the life of a mediator is deeply unfair.

But I didn't complain to my mom. I never did. As much as it killed me, it was better that she thought her only daughter was a delinquent who may or may not be sexually active with her boyfriend than a freak who had to corral the undead to their next destination.

Once my mom had left my room, with my phone in tow, I gravitated from my bed to my window seat with Moby Dick in tow.

It felt weird to sit here, in front of the big bay window, without thinking that Jesse might materialize at any moment. I took a glance at the book, which was just as boring as it had been when I was sitting on my bed, and then I fixed my gaze on the distant ocean I could see from my window.

Had this been how it was for Jesse?

How many days had he spent here idly, looking out of this same window, reminded that there was nothing out there for him? The only thing he'd had (that I knew of) was Maria Diego's handkerchief. One hundred and fifty years of solitude and his only memento was a trinket from the woman who had him murdered, the woman who made his family think he'd run off to seek his fortune in San Francisco and shirk his filial duties.

Sometimes, like now for instance, I wished I could break Maria Diego's neck all over again.

I put my book down in frustration. There was no way I would be able to focus on anything when all I felt like doing now was punching something.

I changed out of the clothes I'd been wearing to school and slipped on a pair of gym shorts and an old t-shirt. As far as I could tell, my mom had not forbidden my kickboxing tape from me.

After an hour long workout that confirmed I was still in perfect shape for kicking ghost butt, I slipped into the kitchen to grab a can of Diet Coke. I caught a glimpse of the time as I released the pull tab on the can. There was only an hour left until school got out at the Mission. Which meant that there was only an hour left until today's student council meeting.

I was sure that my suspension had already come and gone so far as hot topics of conversation went, so I didn't think anyone would expect me at today's meeting. Kelly was probably happy that I wasn't there. She'd probably plan as many dances as she possibly could in my absence. Since the moment I'd been elected vice president, I'd been converting the dances she'd planned into beach cookouts, and Kelly was none too happy about it.

I stopped thinking about Kelly and cookouts when I saw a shimmer out of the corner of my eye. I knew that shimmer too well; it was a telltale sign that a ghost had just materialized.

Even when my job got my suspended from school, I still couldn't manage to quit it.

"What do you...want?" I asked.

My voice trailed off as I saw exactly who had materialized behind me. With tanned skin, honey blond hair, blue eyes, and a conceited look on her face, it couldn't have been anyone other than the student council president herself, Kelly Prescott.

I stared at her blankly, and she stared back at me in just as much confusion.

"Suze?" Kelly said.

I must have looked like an idiot because I couldn't help but stand there in shock for a few more seconds. Kelly Prescott was dead? I'd always thought Kelly Prescott would stick around and annoy me until the end of time, or at least until graduation.

But one of the things I've learned as a mediator is that no one is immortal. We've all got to kick the bucket sometime—even if it's earlier than we might have thought.

"Kelly," I began. "How did you…"

I was about to say "die," but the word wouldn't emerge from my lips properly. I cleared my throat to start, but Kelly beat me to it.

"How did I get here?" she asked as she looked around the kitchen. "I don't know how I got here. What's going on, Suze?"

"I wasn't going to ask how you got _here_ ," I said, and I waived my hand around to indicate that I meant the Simon-Ackerman kitchen. "What I meant was how did you die?"

"Dye?" Kelly asked. "What are you talking about? I'm a natural blond, Suze. Debbie's the one who—."

Kelly looked at me with an intensity I had never seen from her before.

"Are you spelling that D-I-E?" she asked.

"Yes, Kelly," I said. "I'm asking you how died. As in, left your body behind but retained your soul on this plane of existence."

Kelly's face went pale, or as pale as she could get considering her native Californian tan. Her blue eyes were opened wide in disbelief.

"I'm… I'm dead?" Kelly asked. "How is that… How can I be…? What do you mean, dead?"

I sighed. I had a repertoire of synonyms for the word dead, and, like a shot, I began to name them off. But before I could get past "pushing up daisies," she interrupted me.

"I know what dead is, Suze," Kelly said sharply. "But I also know that I'm not it. Dead, I mean."

"And I beg to differ," I replied. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"The last thing I remember? It… It was really black," she said.

"Really black?" I repeated.

"Yeah. Really black," she said, but her tone was full of uncertainty.

"Do you remember anything before that? What happened today?"

Kelly bit her lip before she said, "I was out late last night, and I didn't hear my alarm clock this morning, so I ended up being late to school today. Like, really late. When I woke up, school had been in session for a couple of hours already."

Assembly started at eight in the morning. If she'd woken up at ten or so, and then had to undergo her usual makeup regimen and coordinate an outfit, there was no way she could've been ready for school before eleven thirty.

"I left my house a little before noon."

See?

"And I got in my car, started to drive, and…"

"And?" I asked.

Kelly's eyes were narrowed in a deep concentration. I could see that she was actually trying to go back to the scene in her mind.

She sighed, apparently in defeat, and said, "And that's the last thing I remember. Before it all went black, that is."

Kelly might not have known what happened next, but I did. It sounded like a car accident. The last thing the person remembered was being in a car and then nothing. The real question now was why she was still hanging around.

"Kelly, before you died," I said as Kelly winced at the word dead, "did you have any unfinished business?"

"Unfinished business?"

"Like… Did you have an argument or a fight with someone and never reconcile with them? Or is there something you want someone important to you to know?"

Kelly's face was completely blank. "I don't get it," she said.

"Was there anything you did while you were alive that you need to correct now?" I asked.

"I… I don't think so," she said.

The life of a mediator is not just unfair; it's also unlucky. If I had any luck at all, Kelly would have said something like, "Unfinished business! I know exactly what you mean. Would you mind telling my parents I loved them?"

But one of the things that could make my mediator job loathsome, apart from its negative impact on my social life, was ghosts who didn't know what they wanted. They were pretty time consuming. I'd rather deal with a clueless ghost than a violent one, but, in the end neither ranked highly on my Ghosts I Wouldn't Mind Mediating list.

"Well, figuring that out is the first step to me helping you to move on" I said in my most professional mediator voice.

"Move on?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "'Move on.' You're not supposed to be in this world forever, Kelly. You go to Heaven or Hell or your next life or—."

"Oh," Kelly said quietly.

"Yeah," I said, and I couldn't help but fidget awkwardly.

A few moments passed between us in silence before Kelly spoke again.

"Do you do this often?" she asked.

"Do what often?"

"Communicate with… with…"

"With the dead?" I said.

It was a harsh clarification, but the sooner Kelly got used to being dead, the easier she'd be to mediate.

Kelly nodded reluctantly.

"All the time," I said with a shrug.

It felt really weird telling Kelly this, even if she was already dead. The only people at school who knew I was a mediator were Father Dom, CeeCee, and Paul. Not even my only family knew, but now Kely was hip to my biggest secret.

"I'm dead," Kelly said, and she shook her head as her voice began to trail off. "I can't be dead…"

She dematerialized a second later in a sparkle of blue light.

I'd see her again before too long. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

 **Next Chapter:**


	4. SAT urday

**Disclaimer:** The Mediator is a book by Meg Cabot. I am ss10009, not Meg Cabot. I don't own the Mediator, nor do I attempt to make money off of this fanfiction.

 **Chapter 4 –** **SAT . urday**

There was no word of Kelly that night.

Or at least the night didn't start off with any conversation about her. Which was odd. Brad was more or less with Debbie, but I knew he had a thing for Kelly. I expected him to be somewhat of a wreck by dinnertime. But he was his usual Brad self: disgusting, inconsiderate, and irritating.

After all, he was being plenty irritating when it came to my current situation. You know, the whole, I skipped school and got grounded, situation.

"So, Suze," Brad began.

He was the first to break conversation at the table. It was an unprecedented move for him, but he had clearly prioritized tormenting me over his usual eating habits.

"How was your day? Here, at home?" Brad asked.

"Fine," I replied stiffly.

This question established a gateway for everyone else to question me about my day. "Did you get a lot of homework done?" from Andy made way for "Your teachers gave me some work to bring to you during your suspension" from Doc. And when the phone rang, Mom reminded me, before going to answer it in the kitchen, that I wasn't allowed to talk on the phone until my suspension was finished.

Dopey snickered loudly at that. I aimed a kick at his shins, but I wound up hitting the table leg with a loud thud.

"What was that?" Andy asked as he looked at the table in confusion.

I tried to keep myself from wincing, but, even as someone who'd been thrown off a roof before, stubbing my toe was far from fun.

"You OK, Suze?" Doc asked.

"Peachy keen," I said tersely as I tried to mask the discomfort in my voice.

"Just like your day here then, huh?" Dopey said, still snickering. " _Some_ of us were busy being productive at school today."

"Don't you mean reproductive?" I hissed as Andy left the table to tend to an apple pie that was in the oven and Mom continued her phone conversation. "It's pretty much common knowledge that you and Debbie Mancuso were getting horizontal in a bathroom stall."

Dopey glared at me. "For the last time, Suze, I'm not screwing around with Debbie Mancuso. Give it a rest."

"And for the last time, Brad," I replied, "I can't deny the things that I see with my own two eyes."

Dopey looked momentarily taken aback. What I'd said was only half true. I hadn't seen what the two of them had been up to in the bathroom but heard it. And I don't think they went all the way either, but it didn't really matter. He was totally screwing around with Debbie Mancuso.

Andy returned from the kitchen alongside my mom. He was wearing oven mitts and carrying an apple pie that was emitting steam and a delectable aroma.

Brad had definitely picked up on the scent, too. He was holding his fork in hand and was poised to attack the dessert the moment it landed on the table.

"It's hot, Brad. You're going to want to wait a few minutes for it to cool down before you take any," Andy warned.

Brad took this into brief consideration before deciding that his mouth could handle hot. He removed a slab of pie from the tin and began to eat, albeit cautiously at first. I was disappointed when I didn't see him contort his face in pain from the heat of the pie. He was obviously skilled at handling hot foods in his mouth.

"What happened at the student council meeting today?" I asked as I put a slice of pie on my own plate.

I was reluctant to talk about school with Brad, but, as vice president of the eleventh grade, I kind of needed to know what was going on. I also needed to know what everyone else knew about Kelly.

"Nothing," Brad replied. "Kelly took your idea and ditched school today. There wasn't a meeting."

My breath hitched in my throat briefly. They didn't know she was dead yet, of course. It had been obvious from the way Brad hadn't said a word about her dying. This was, in a way, both good and bad. Good because it would make helping Kelly to move on much easier. Obviously, she was hanging around because she wanted people to know she was dead. Once everyone found out, Kelly would move on. On the other hand, when news of Kelly's death hit, it was going to hit hard. She was the most popular student at the Mission, after all. It would be like Heather all over again, without all the action and near-death scenarios.

"She ditched?" I asked. "Isn't that a little bit unlike her. I mean, doesn't she have perfect attendance or something?"

"Yeah, I guess it is a little weird for her, but she was probably tired after the night before."

Kelly had mentioned that she'd been out late the other night. It was why she'd slept through her alarm clock. It was probably a college party, owing to Thirsty Thursday, and it looked like Brad had been there, too.

"Night before?" Andy asked.

"Uh…," Brad said, clearly trying to think up a reasonable lie. He'd definitely been out party, and probably not soberly. "Big history test. Kelly probably was up cramming or something."

Andy seemed to accept this lie as Brad continued in a hasty attempt to gravitate away from the goings on of the night before.

"Weird thing is, she's not answering her phone or anything," he said.

"Probably because she sees your name on the caller ID," Doc supplied.

"Shut up! And the first time I called it wasn't even from my phone."

I wanted to interject that it had probably been from Debbie's cell phone, but I restrained myself. What I really wanted was to know if anyone had begun the process of looking for her. If someone else could find her body instead of me, then it might be an instant case closed on the Kelly Prescott file.

"No one's seen her since last night—uh, yesterday afternoon at school, I mean."

Mom looked alarmed.

"So no one has any idea where this seventeen year old girl is or what's happened to her in the past twenty-four hours?" she said.

Brad thought about that for a second.

"Basically, yeah, I guess," he said.

"Has someone notified the authorities?" Andy asked.

Brad shrugged and said, "I don't know. But I doubt it's that serious, Dad. She'll be back any time now."

Doc corroborated this by saying, "Brad may just be right. Current statistics indicate that Carmel has virtually no murder or manslaughter nor any forcible rape."

Neither Mom nor Andy looked pacified. They were wearing matching Worried Parent expressions, the kind of expressions that said they were imagining one of us being inexplicably missing for twenty-four hours.

As much as I wanted Dopey and Doc's beliefs to be correct and nothing with Kelly to be amiss, Mom and Andy's worries were justified in this case. Like it or not, Kelly Prescott was dead.

A few more moments passed in silence, as the worry from Mom and Andy refused to dissipate.

Eventually though, my mom dropped the Kelly subject and looked first at me and then at Dopey. "I'm assuming both of you know what tomorrow is," she said.

I looked at her, and then I looked at Dopey. Between the three of us, Mom seemed to be the only with a clue as to what she was talking about.

"Test prep for the SAT. From ten o'clock until two," Mom said, and her voice sounded slightly exasperated as she went on. "We signed both of you up for it weeks ago. We told you to make room for it on your calendars because it'll be every Saturday until the SAT."

"Every Saturday until the SAT?" Dopey and I asked simultaneously.

Andy swallowed a mouthful of pie and said, "You can't expect to just go once and get the full effect. It's supposed to raise your score by up to four hundred points."

I looked between my mom and Andy in hope that I'd heard them wrong, but neither of them seemed set on retracting their statements anytime soon.

Dopey unhappily finished his piece of apple pie and excused himself from the table, most likely so that he could go and sulk while listening to Marilyn Manson. I ate my first bite of pie of the evening. It was tasty, but it would've been better without knowing that my Saturdays had been commandeered by education.

Saturday arrived faster than I would have liked it to. I could've gone my whole life without knowing what the inside of Carmel Community College looked like. The walls of the SAT prep classroom were very white, and the lights were much too bright for my eyes to take in at a quarter to ten on a Saturday morning.

My mother had rushed us out the door early while saying, "The early bird catches the worm."

I was sure that the old adage was more or less true when it came to journalism, but trying to apply it to SAT prep was stretching it a little far. The only advantage to coming early to SAT prep was that Dopey and I had our pick of which of the forty or so seats in the room to sit in.

There were only two people in the room apart from me and Dopey. There was a man with graying blond hair standing at the front of the room. He was obviously the instructor. He was making conversation with a guy who was much younger than him and had crisp black hair and brown skin and was very obviously Jesse de Silva.

I dropped my bag in the seat next to him wordlessly when he was finished talking to the instructor.

The grin he gave me when his eyes met mine made my heart pound like I was doing a round of kickboxing. I couldn't help but smile back at him.

"I thought you were starting with the MCAT," I said.

"Unfortunately, no," he said, and then he lowered his voice before saying, "There's only so much paperwork the Father can produce."

"Well, I guess you're stuck here with me then."

"You know, I tried to call you yesterday, and I ended up speaking to your mother. She sounded upset with me."

"Did she?" I asked. Jesse was, most likely, the call that had been received during dinner yesterday then.

"She told me that I was interfering with your education, and you weren't allowed to see me until your semester at school was over," Jesse said. "This wouldn't have anything to do with your leaving school early the other day, would it?."

"It might," I said.

Jesse rolled his eyes. "You should have waited until school was finished, and then allowed either myself or Father Dominic to take care of the situation. Going through all that trouble only got you into more of it."

I was about to tell Jesse that I did not need another critic of my actions on Thursday and that, although I knew mediation was a thankless job, it should not also have a punishable offense. I didn't get around to saying any of this because that was when I heard Dopey's voice.

"I don't think Mom and Dad would really like this, Suze," he said. His loud voice received a rude look from the instructor, but Dopey, being Dopey, didn't notice. "You know you're not supposed to be seeing him at all."

Yes, I knew I wasn't supposed to see Jesse, but how did Dopey know about that? As far as I knew, all Dopey and Doc knew about my punishment was that I wasn't allowed to use the phone. Regardless, it didn't really matter how he knew. I had my own ammunition.

"Yeah, well, I don't think you're allowed to sneak out and go party on school nights. And, as far as I can recall, the night before last was definitely a school night," I responded coolly.

Dopey was about to say something, but Jesse spoke instead.

"I'm not going to disrespect your mother like that, Susannah," Jesse said simply. "We might not be able to change the fact that we're in the same classroom, but we can change the fact that we're sitting so closely to each other."

I knew what he meant, and I could tell by his tone that his decision was final. I picked up my things and, huffily, went back to the other side of the room.

Damn that man's morals.

 **Next Chapter:** Back in the Saddle

 **Note:** Since this chapter was called "SAT . urday" FFNet decided it was a link and censored it during last chapter's "Next Chapter" section. Sorry 'bout that. (The chapter title now has an awkward space between "Sat" and "Urday.")


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